John Henry Newman, an established Anglican went to Rome to discern if Jesus was calling him to become a Roman Catholic. One day, on his voyage home he prayed. “Lead me Lord!…I cannot see the way…lead me kindly light.”

The words brought such peace to him that he was able to hear clearly the voice of Jesus. Newman became a saint and was a significant mind in the Catholicism of nineteenth century.

His life begs the question of us, do I believe? Do I trust Jesus who speaks to me so vitally in the Scriptures, Who commingles with my humanity in the Eucharist? Am I confident that He will lead me where I need to go?

Blessed John Paul said, “Only faith enables us to experience the presence of God in Christ in the very center of our life.” We can only reach our core as human beings with silence. Only with a stilled heart can we really listen for His Voice.

We stand in the middle of an age that longingly desires to see God’s face and yet is willing to give Him up for material priorities and thus be enslaved by material things.

Even our freedom is compromised in our choice to stay away from the Christ who forgives yet it is only in Christ that the true meaning of the human condition and our supreme dignity as children of God comes alive and lives freely in communion with Him.”

Faith in the Son of Man, John Paul II states “is the heartbeat of the new evangelization, because faith actively opens our hearts and minds more and more to the teachings and light of Christ.”

But as people of faith we must overcome our fear of letting go of material things in order to lead others out of fear and into the lights of confidence, safety and joy, not just in being human but being God’s holy children!

To understand faith we must seek Him in the Family of the Trinity and be willing to let go of our pride, our plans and our prejudices. We must be able to give everything to him as he has for us.

“Lead me Lord!…I cannot see the way…lead me kindly light.”

“Here I am Lord, I come to do Your Will.”

As our parish comes together this weekend in its weekly worship of God, we enter this holy place with a sense of the sacred. This place is different than our homes, our workspaces and our marketplaces. Here, at the footstool of God, we rest our love, our worries, and our material responsibilities and we stand before God with nothing but our hearts opened to receive Him.

We have listened to the Prayer, the Readings and the Psalm and what have we heard; that we are members of a larger Body than ourselves; that this Body is Christ and with this Body we should glorify God.

The Gospel reveals this conversation with the disciples, reflecting our own search for God; “Teacher, where do you stay that we might come to You?”

Jesus answers us: “Come and See.” In other words, drop everything that clings to you, material things, emotional things, things that hold you back from righteousness, like sin. Understand clearly what is happening here before you: “God has prepared a table for us, and how precious is the chalice that quenches our thirst.” (Ps 23)

And what do the disciples do in their quest; they find Peter and they go and stay with Jesus. We have our own Apostle in the person of our Archbishop and we walk with him to Jesus.

And finally, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own,” you are a part of the whole.

Suddenly our parish, our Archdiocese is back with Samuel, resting in the night, hearing the voice that beckons us here into God’s presence. What should we do? Say to the Lord, “Speak Lord, You servant is listening” and in the silence of our hearts sing gently with the psalmist: “Here am I Lord; I come to do your will.”

On May 22nd Bishop Daniel Thomas (auxiliary to the Archbishop of Philadelphia) will visit MDP to confer the Sacrament of Confirmation on students in grades 6 and higher who have completed their sacramental preparation.  These young Christians will receive the Holy Spirit, whom the Lord sent upon the Apostles on Pentecost, and become more fully conformed to Christ.  By the grace of the Holy Spirit their lives will be strengthened to enable them to bear witness to Christ as they build up his Body in faith and love.

While the initiation of children into the sacramental life is primarily the responsibility and concern of Christian parents, we as a worshiping community express the faith the Holy Spirit has produced in us by joining their parents through our participation in the celebration of the sacrament.

It is appropriate for each person being confirmed to have a sponsor for the sacrament. In addition to presenting the candidate to the Bishop the sponsor helps the newly confirmed fulfill their baptismal promises faithfully under the guidance of the Holy Spirit whom they have received.  For this reason it is desirable that the godparent at baptism, if available, also be the sponsor at confirmation.

Confirmation takes place within the celebration of Mass.  This makes clear the importance of confirmation by which the faithful are incorporated into Christ and configured to him through the bond of the three sacraments of initiation: baptism, confirmation and the Eucharist. Celebrating the rite of Confirmation at Mass affirms the fundamental  connection of the sacrament with the other Rites of Christian Initiation and allows this connection to be clearly seen and understood. Through the sacrament of confirmation those who have been born anew in baptism receive the inexpressible gift of the Holy Spirit and are further strengthened by the reception of the Eucharist.

During the celebration of the sacrament great emphasis is placed on the word of God that introduces the rite of confirmation.  It is in hearing the word of God that the many-sided work of the Holy Spirit flows out upon his church and upon each one of the baptized and confirmed.  Through this hearing of his Word, God’s will is made known in the life of Christians everywhere. During this celebration we move from listening to the word of God to the sacramental experience of the Eucharist.

The diocesan bishop is the ordinary minister of the sacrament of confirmation.  As a successor to the apostles, his presence as the sacramental minister creates a clear connection to the first pouring forth of the Holy Spirit on the apostles at Pentecost. The apostles were so filled with the Holy Spirit that by divine inspiration they began to proclaim “the mighty works of God.”  They then gave the Spirit to the faithful through the laying on of hands.  Thus the reception of the Spirit through the ministry of the bishop shows the close bond that joins the confirmed to the Church with the mandate received from Christ to bear witness to him before all.

The sacrament of confirmation is conferred through the anointing with sacred chrism on the forehead, which is done by the laying on of the hand, and through the words: “Be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.” The laying of hands on the candidate by the bishop, along with the anointing with chrism and the accompanying words clearly express the effect of the giving of the Holy Spirit.  Signed with the perfumed oil of chrism, the baptized receive the indelible character, or seal, of the Lord.  This, together with the Gift of the Spirit conforms them more closely to Christ and gives them the grace to spread the “sweet fragrance of Christ” in the world.

The sacrament of Confirmation draws us into God’s glory as we are consecrated to him and share in his three fold ministry of Priest, Prophet and King.  Our priestly ministry is witnessed in our adoration of God and through our prayerful intercession for the needs of his people.  As his current-day prophet we witness to God’s kingdom here on earth by glorifying the Lord by our lives.  And we share in his kingship by humbling ourselves and becoming servant to all through the works of charity inspired by the Spirit.

Let us pray for those to be confirmed and for all already confirmed in his love:

“Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth.”

In this new year of grace, the Church contemplates Mary, the Mother of God. The virgin Mary was born to be a mother. This vocation is made holy for all mothers as they live their lives dedicated to their husbands and to their children. The supreme consolation that Mary receives at the cross of her Son is the assurance that this vocation as Mother does not end with Christ’s death.

Jesus commands the world, you and me, “Behold your mother.” Mary then is eternally bonded to us and we to her “behold your mother.”Mary leads us to Christ, and Christ leads us back to Mary, for without Mary’s motherhood, the incarnation would be a mere concept and abstraction.

The Lord wills to ‘let his face shine upon us’ through the face of the Mother of God. May the Church, who is Christ, ever be mindful and respectful of motherhood through Mary’s faithful and joyous prayer for us. May we who are her children, lead others to Christ in this New Year through Mary.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I want to welcome you here tonight. This is our spiritual home, built with many sacrifices. Here children are born to new life, here we perform the burial rites for those who die. Here every Sunday God gives us new life and a love that will never pass away.

In the 1947 film, The Bishop’s Wife, the Bishop tells his congregation, “Tonight I want to tell you the story of an empty stocking. 

Once upon a midnight clear, there was a child’s cry, a blazing star hung over a stable, and wise men came with birthday gifts.

We haven’t forgotten that night down the centuries; we celebrate it with stars on Christmas trees, with the sound of bells, and with gifts, but especially with gifts. You give me a book, I give you a sweater, Aunt Kathy has always wanted an IPad and Uncle Henry can do with a new Keuric Coffee Maker.

We don’t forget anybody, adult or child.

All the stockings are filled, all that is, except one. And we have even forgotten to hang it up, the stocking for the child born in a manger.

It’s his birthday we’re celebrating after all. Don’t let us ever forget that. 
But let us ask ourselves what He would wish for most. And then, let each one of us put in his share: charity, joy, peace, patience, loving kindness, goodness, patient suffering, mildness, faith, modesty, contentment, chastity and warm hearts that can stretch out and embrace even those who are alien to us. All the shinning gifts that make peace on earth and goodwill toward men.”

My friends, these are the things that matter, not the book, or the sweater or the IPod.

Look in the manger. See there the poverty of the Child Jesus and ask yourselves tonight, do I need these material things to be like Him?

With all the things I worry about. With all the anxiety and impatience that surrounds me. What is it I really need to take his place in this cave of poverty, peace and serenity?

This day, Jesus is calling you to discover the gifts within you like wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord. With these we may not have gifts to fill stockings but we will have gifts to fill hearts – and aren’t they the most important gifts of all.

Merry Christmas to you all, and may your hearts beam with the Light of this humbled Child who comes for you this night to show you the dawn of a new day.

As we begin our final movement in the fourth week of Advent, I would like to reflect a moment on Mary, as she is present in the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium:  ‘the sign of true hope and comfort for the pilgrim people of God.’

“Mary, the Mother of Jesus walks with us on our journey of faith from conception to resurrection she is present to us-by her life example and through her powerful intercession-she is a model for our own call to holiness. As we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the birth of the Church we value this model of virtue because it is through our meditation on her life that ‘the Church reverently penetrates more deeply the great mystery of the Incarnation  and becomes more and more like Christ. (LG-65)” .

Mary is present at the birth of the Church in the manger. She is present at the first manifestation of the Church in Cana. She is present at the birth of the Church under the Cross-on Calvary. She is present still in the fear and the fire of Pentecost.  But now we stand with her, watching and waiting. We anticipate her great anxiety and joy, her fear and her confidence. We are expectant with her Word made Flesh in our own humanity.

Throughout the long history of Incarnation, Mary stands ready to pray with us, and to pray in supplication for us as Mother of God and Mother of the Church.

It is Mary who helps us understand our humanity and how it has been transformed, given dignity and respect. She teaches us how to wait patiently and expect joyfully the Birth of Jesus in our own lives. She teaches us that each life is significant to God, and because of that significance, how we can manifest it to a lonely and shadowy world.  Karl Barth once wrote: “Anyone who has really understood that God became human can never speak or act in an inhuman way.”

In her action, through her wondrous ‘yes’ ‘May Mary continue to intercede for us, in fellowship with all the saints, as close as she is to her Son-the Church, until all families of people, be happily gathered together in peace and harmony into One People of God, for the glory of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity” (LG-22)